As we prepare to head into the final month of 2015, the battle for the two major Player of the Year awards have basically come down to two men. The man who has basically dominated the leaderboards since the 2015 World Series of Poker, Anthony Zinno, has now come under fire from another player who has had an outstanding year, Byron Kaverman. For the most part, it looks as though it will come down to these two men to determine the POY. (Due to the closure of their magazine and website, the Bluff Magazine Player of the Year standings have not been updated and, as such, have been dropped from our review.)
On the CardPlayer Magazine Player of the Year review, Zinno has been the overwhelming leader for virtually all of the last half of 2015. He tacked on some points in winning the Borgata Poker Open’s $1000 Heads Up Event to bring his current total to 6632 points. This type of points domination is something rarely seen on the CardPlayer boards; last year, POY Dan Colman seemingly dominated the field on the way to accumulating 5498 points for the entire year. Zinno had that beaten at the end of the WSOP.
Kaverman isn’t the only one who is trying to catch up to Zinno’s pace. In second place on the CardPlayer POY is Joe Kuether, who has been cobbling together some decent finishes in tournaments to grind his way up the ladder. His second place finish at the WSOP Circuit event in Hammond in October, along with his third place finish at the Borgata Poker Open World Poker Tour event in late September, has added 1760 points to his resume to run Kuether up to 5658 points. With some decent finishes in December, Kuether may be the one who knocks Zinno off the mountain.
In third place on the CardPlayer standings is Nick Petrangelo, who has been lurking for much of the 2015 tournament poker year. Although he only earned a few points for his third place finish at the European Poker Tour Malta Super High Roller event, those points were enough to keep him in this slot with 5526 points. Depending on his tournament schedule next month (Europe or the United States?), Petrangelo might find some events to push him further into consideration for the POY.
Although he has had a great year to this point, Kaverman has more work to do if he is going to seize the CardPlayer POY. Despite winning the EPT Malta’s High Roller tournament in late October (for 900 points), Kaverman still finds himself almost 1300 points behind Zinno with 5342 points. From a look at how points are awarded on the CardPlayer charts, Kaverman will probably have to win another tournament and/or have some deep runs in several events if he’s to move up higher.
The remainder of the CardPlayer Player of the Year rankings will earn a nice finish for 2015 but have a “slim to none” shot of taking the title. That includes Benjamin Zamani (4561 points), Jason Mercier (4294), Mario Javier Lopez (3898), Steve O’Dwyer (3890) Mustapha Kanit (3860) and World Champion Joe McKeehen (3748), who hold down the fifth through tenth place slots. These men aren’t locked into the Top Ten, either, as players like Dzmitry Urbanovich (3723 points), Rainer Kempe (3720) and WSOP Europe Championship Event winner Kevin MacPhee (3710) lurk beneath them.
The Global Poker Index Player of the Year rankings are intriguing in that there are some names there that didn’t appear in the CardPlayer poll. On the GPI’s standings, Kaverman has been able to amass 4736.9 points, with that victory in the EPT Malta High Roller earning him 550.31 points. That finish replaced one of his top 13 finishes for 2015 to help push him to his current mark. (Under the GPI POY, a player’s top 13 finishes are the only ones that count towards computing a player’s total points. A player’s point total can only increase if they have a finish that bests one of their previous efforts.)
Zinno is within shouting distance of Kaverman. With his 4649.07 points that are currently good enough for second place, he would need to replace his lowest POY point total (the 238.09 points earned at the Bellagio Cup XI event in July) with one that earns him more than 100 points more (provided Kaverman doesn’t do anything in December); that usually means that a player has to win a big tournament and Zinno is certainly capable of doing just that.
It gets more difficult as you work your way down the remainder of the GPI POY. Petrangelo (4406.04 points), O’Dwyer (4333.58) and Urbanovich (4095.19) hold the third through fifth place slots, but it will be difficult for any of them to even pass Zinno, let alone Kaverman. The story is also the same for those in the bottom half of the GPI Top Ten.
It is in this segment of the standings that we get some diversity between CardPlayer and the GPI. After Mercier in sixth place (4076.07 points), there is a completely different sixth through tenth place players. Connor Drinan (3996.08), Dominik Nitsche (3848.66), Fedor Holz (3834.3) and Scott Seiver (3834.1) are in these positions and could move up in the GPI Top Ten with some good work in December. If you’re counting at home, that makes for a total of 14 men who can state that they were one of the top ten tournament poker players for 2015 and we still have December to get through.
The December schedule will pretty much jam the big events in well before Christmas. The WPT will hold two events in Prague, the Czech Republic, and at the Bellagio in Las Vegas, while the EPT goes to Prague after the WPT departs. There are some smaller events that might have some chance to push some pros, particularly the WSOP-C stops in North Carolina and at the Bicycle Hotel and Casino in Los Angeles and the Aria High Roller tournaments, but it looks like it is a two-man race for the different POY titles. Who will come out on top? For a prediction, look for Zinno to keep the CardPlayer edge and Kaverman his GPI crown, splitting the tournament poker Player of the Year races once again. By the time the presents are being opened on Christmas Day, we will know the results.
